What does a pine marten look like?

Search: pine marten

Why: In The Amber Spyglass:

Pantalaimon often draped his pine-marten form over the mock battlements on the corner facing south... He was lying on top of the stone parapet, lazily grooming his red gold fur.

Answer: Omg, another kitty puppy. It is the size of a domestic housecat:

Source: Google Images

The More You Know: The marten is a member of the Mustelidae family, which includes otters! badgers! wolverines! weasels! stoats! ermines! polecats! minks! and ferrets!

Where is the northern-most point of Alaska?

Search: alaska northern most

Why: 2Pz posted this link to a story about the loneliest polar bear:

and then:

Katrina: there are polar bears in alaska?!

Answer: Barrow, AK - the northernmost city in the United States - is located at 71°17′44″N. (The North Pole, in case you forgot how circles work, should be at 90° N).

Fun facts about Barrow:

• Population 3,982
• Located 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle (which is about 66° N)
• The high daily temperature is above freezing on an average of only 109 days per year.
• Classified as a desert, with an average of less than 5 in. "equivalent rainfall" per year, which includes less than 30 in. of snow
• July is the warmest month of the year with an average high of 46 °F
• The Barrow High School football team are called the Whalers
  

Source: Wikipedia

The More You Know: The polar bear habitat spans 5 nations:

1. Denmark (Greenland)
2. Norway (Svalbard)
3. Russia
4. US (Alaska)
   
5. Canada

These five nations signed the 1973 International Agreement for the Conservation of Polar Bears, which mandates cooperation on research and conservations efforts throughout the polar bear's range.

Also, I'm pretty sure Svalbard is where the armored bears live in The Golden Compass.

What makes a boat a yacht?

Search: yacht definition

Why: In The Beast (1996) (TV), the couple that killed at the beginning (spoiler alert) call their little saily boat a yacht when they call in for distress. In The Amber Spyglass:

Suddenly they saw him. Heads turned with a snap, and at once all those wings were raised high, exactly like the sails of a yacht, and they all leaned in with the breeze, making for the shore.

For some reason, I always thought of yachts of enormous boats - with motors, I guess - like cruise ships.

Answer: From the Dutch words jaghd and jacht, meaning "hunt," a yacht originally was a light, fast sailing vessel used to convey important persons. Now it is generally understood as a "pleasure boat" (not work boat) of any size or style, either sailing yacht or powerboat.

Yacht lengths generally range from 20 feet (6 m) up to hundreds of feet. Luxury crafts smaller than 40 feet are more commonly called "cabin cruisers" or simply "cruisers." A mega yacht generally refers to any yacht (sail or power) above 100 ft (34 m) and a super yacht generally refers to any yacht over 200 ft (70 m). This size is small in relation to typical cruise liners and oil tankers.

Source: Mimi.hu, Wikipedia

The More You Know: When was the last time you watched this?

I got a nautical themed pashmina afghan.

What is a naphtha stove?

Search: nafta stove; amber spyglass stove

Why: In The Amber Spyglass (which I am listening to on audiobook):

Behind him, just beyond the point where the sunlight reached, Mrs. Coulter was heating some water in a small pan over a naphtha stove. Her daemon uttered a warning murmur and Mrs. Coulter looked up.

Answer: Naphtha is "a class of colorless, volatile, flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixtures." Gasoline and kerosene are both technically considered naphthas. The stove might look like this:

Source: Encyclopedia.com, Google Images

The More You Know: Since I was listening (not reading), I first searched for "nafta." Polish people actually do call it nafta. They also say benzyna rektyfikowana.

What does an ermine look like?

Search: ermine

Why: In The Golden Compass, sometimes the Lyra's daemon Pantalaimon turns into one:

Pantalaimon's white ermine fur bristled: she felt it tickling her neck.

Answer: Holy moses:

The ermine is also goes by the names stoat, ermelin, and short-tailed weasel. Sometimes "ermine" refers to the animal only when it has white fur, while "stoat" only refers to when it has brown fur.

In spite of being such a small animal, the ermine's gestation is among the longest reported for mammals (11 months) because of the adaptation of delayed implantation, or embryonic diapause, in which a fertilized egg is not implanted in the uterus until months later. The animal's "real" gestation is much shorter. This is presumably an adaptation to the highly seasonal environment in which the stoat lives.

Source: Google Images

The More You Know: Here is a pretty good explanation about "What are Daemons?"

In Lyra's world all human souls take the form of animal companions called daemons (pronounced DEE-mons). A small, often-changing animal named Pantalaimon accompanies Lyra wherever she goes -- a lifelong companion.